Armadale by Wilkie Collins

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name into the bargain. Ozias Midwinter, Junior, you have had agood breakfast; if you want a good dinner, come along with me!'He got up, the dogs trotted after him, and I trotted after thedogs. Who was my new father? you will ask. A half-breed gypsy,sir; a drunkard, a ruffian, and a thief--and the best friend Iever had! Isn't a man your friend who gives you your food, yourshelter, and your education? Ozias Midwinter taught me to dancethe Highland fling, to throw somersaults, to walk on stilts, andto sing songs to his fiddle. Sometimes we roamed the country,and performed at fairs. Sometimes we tried the large towns, andenlivened bad company over its cups. I was a nice, lively littleboy of eleven years old, and bad company, the women especially,took a fancy to me and my nimble feet. I was vagabond enough tolike the life. The dogs and I lived together, ate, and drank, andslept together. I can't think of those poor little four-footedbrothers of mine, even now, without a choking in the throat. Manyis the beating we three took together; many is the hard day'sdancing we did together; many is the night we have slepttogether, and whimpered together, on the cold hill-side. I'm nottrying to distress you, sir; I'm only telling you the truth. Thelife with all its hardships was a life that fitted me, and thehalf-breed gypsy who gave me his name, ruffian as he was, was aruffian I liked."

"A man who beat you!" exclaimed Mr. Brock, in astonishment.

"Didn't I tell you just now, sir, that I lived with the dogs? anddid you ever hear of a dog who liked his master the worse forbeating him? Hundreds of thousands of miserable men, women, andchildren would have liked that man (as I liked him) if he hadalways given them what he always gave me--plenty to eat. It wasstolen food mostly, and my new gypsy father was generous with it.He seldom laid the stick on us when he was sober; but it divertedhim to hear us yelp when he was drunk. He died drunk, and enjoyedhis favorite amusement with his last breath. One day (when I hadbeen two years in his service), after giving us a good dinnerout on the moor, he sat down with his back against a stone, andcalled us up to divert himself with his stick. He made the dogsyelp first, and then he called to me. I didn't go very willingly;he had been drinking harder than usual, and the more he drankthe better he liked his after-dinner amusement. He was in highgood-humor that day, and he hit me so hard that he toppled over,in his drunken state, with the force of his own blow. He fellwith his face in a puddle, and lay there without moving. I andthe dogs stood at a distance, and looked at him: we thought hewas feigning, to get us near and have another stroke at us. Hefeigned so long that we ventured up to him at last. It took mesome time to pull him over; he was a heavy man. When I did gethim on his back, he was dead. We made all the outcry we could;but the dogs were little, and I was little, and the place waslonely; and no help came to us. I took his fiddle and his stick;I said to my two brothers, 'Come along, we must get our ownliving now;' and we went away heavy-hearted, and left him on themoor. Unnatural as it may seem to you, I was sorry for him. Ikept his ugly name through all my after-wanderings, and I haveenough of the old leaven left in me to like the sound of itstill. Midwinter or Armadale, never mind my name now, we willtalk of that afterward; you must know the worst of me first."

"Why not the best of you?" said Mr. Brock, gently.

"Thank you, sir; but I am here to tell the truth. We will get on,if you please, to the next chapter in my story. The dogs and Idid badly, after our master's death; our luck was against us. Ilost one of my little brothers--the best performer of the two; hewas stolen, and I never recovered him. My fiddle and my stiltswere taken from me next, by main force, by a tramp who wasstronger than I. These misfortunes drew Tommy and me--I beg yourpardon, sir, I mean the dog--closer together than ever.

I think we had some kind of dim foreboding on both sides that wehad not done with our misfortunes yet; anyhow, it was not verylong before we were parted forever. We were neither of us thieves(our master had been satisfied with teaching us to dance); but weboth committed an invasion of the rights of property, for allthat. Young creatures, even when they are half starved, cannotresist taking a run sometimes on a fine morning. Tommy and Icould not resist taking a run into a gentleman's plantation; thegentleman preserved his game; and the gentleman's keeper knew hisbusiness. I heard a gun go off; you can guess the rest. Godpreserve me from ever feeling such misery again as I felt when Ilay down by Tommy, and took him, dead and bloody, in my arms! Thekeeper attempted to part us; I bit him, like the wild animal Iwas. He tried the stick on me next; he might as well have triedit on one of the trees. The noise reached the ears of two youngladies riding near the place--daughters of the gentleman on whoseproperty I was a trespasser. They were too well brought up tolift their voices against the sacred right of preserving game,but they were kind-hearted girls, and they pitied me, and took mehome with them. I remember the gentlemen of the house (keensportsmen all of them) roaring with laughter as I went by thewindows, crying, with my little dead dog in my arms. Don'tsuppose I complain of their laughter; it did me good service; itroused the indignation of the two ladies. One of them took meinto her own garden, and showed me a place where I might bury mydog under the flowers, and be sure that no other hands shouldever disturb him again. The other went to her father, andpersuaded him to give the forlorn little vagabond a chance inthe house, under one of the upper servants. Yes! you have beencruising in company with a man who was once a foot-boy. I saw youlook at me, when I amused Mr. Armadale by laying the cloth onboard the yacht. Now you know why I laid it so neatly, and forgotnothing. It has been my good fortune to see something of society;I have helped to fill its stomach and black its boots. Myexperience of the servants' hall was not a long one. Before I hadworn out my first suit of livery, there was a scandal in thehouse. It was the old story; there is no need to tell it overagain for the thousandth time. Loose money left on a table, andnot found there again; all the servants with characters to appealto except the foot-boy, who had been rashly taken on trial. Well!well! I was lucky in that house to the last; I was not prosecutedfor taking what I had not only never touched, but never evenseen: I was only turned out. One morning I went in my old clothesto the grave where I had buried Tommy. I gave the place a kiss;I said good-by to my little dead dog; and there I was, out in theworld again, at the ripe age of thirteen years!"

"In that friendless state, and at that tender age," said Mr.Brock, "did no thought cross your mind of going home again?"

"I went home again, sir, that very night--I slept on thehill-side. What other home had I? In a day or two's time Idrifted back to the large towns and the bad company, the greatopen country was so lonely to me, now I had lost the dogs! Twosailors picked me up next. I was a handy lad, and I got acabin-boy's berth on board a coasting-vessel. A cabin-boy'sberth means dirt to live in, offal to eat, a man's work on aboy's shoulders, and the rope's-end at regular intervals. Thevessel touched at a port in the Hebrides. I was as ungrateful asusual to my best benefactors; I ran away again. Some women foundme, half dead of starvation, in the northern wilds of the Isle ofSkye. It was near the coast and I took a turn with the fishermennext. There was less of the rope's-end among my new masters; butplenty of exposure to wind and weather, and hard work enough tohave killed a boy who was not a seasoned tramp like me. I foughtthrough it till the winter came, and then the fishermen turned meadrift again. I don't blame them; food was scarce, and mouthswere many. With famine staring the whole community in the face,why should they keep a boy who didn't belong to them? A greatcity was my only chance in the winter-time; so I went to Glasgow,and all but stepped into the lion's mouth as soon as I got there.I was minding an empty cart on the Broomielaw, when I heard mystepfather's voice on the pavement side of the horse by which Iwas standing. He had met some person whom he knew, and, to myterror and surprise, they were talking about me. Hidden behindthe horse, I heard enough of their conversation to know that Ihad narrowly escaped discovery before I went on board thecoasting-vessel. I had met at that time with another vagabond boyof my own age; we had quarreled and parted. The day after, mystepfather's inquiries were made in that very district, and itbecame a question with him (a good personal description beingunattainable in either case) which of the two boys he shouldfollow. One of them, he was informed, was known as "Brown," andthe other as "Midwinter." Brown was just the common name whicha cunning runaway boy would be most likely to assume; Midwinter,just the remarkable name which he would be most likely to avoid.The pursuit had accordingly followed Brown, and had allowed meto escape. I leave you to imagine whether I was not doubly andtrebly determined to keep my gypsy master's name after that.But my resolution did not stop here. I made up my mind to leavethe country altogether. After a day or two's lurking about theoutward-bound vessels in port, I found out which sailed first,and hid myself on board. Hunger tried hard to force me out beforethe pilot had left; but hunger was not new to me, and I kept myplace. The pilot was out of the vessel when I made my appearanceon deck, and there was nothing for it but to keep me or throw meoverboard. The captain said (I have no doubt quite truly) that hewould have preferred throwing me overboard; but the majesty ofthe law does sometimes stand the friend even of a vagabond likeme. In that way I came back to a sea-life. In that way I learnedenough to make me handy and useful (as I saw you noticed) onboard Mr. Armadale's yacht. I sailed more than one voyage, inmore than one vessel, to more than one part of the world, and Imight have followed the sea for life, if I could only have keptmy temper under every provocation that could be laid on it. I hadlearned a great deal; but, not having learned that, I made thelast part of my last voyage home to the port of Bristol in irons;and I saw the inside of a prison for the first time in my life,on a charge of mutinous conduct to one of my officers. You haveheard me with extraordinary patience, sir, and I am glad to tellyou, in return, that we are not far now from the end of my story.You found some books, if I remember right, when you searched myluggage at the Somersetshire inn?"

Mr. Brock answered in the affirmative.

"Those books mark the next change in my life--and the last,before I took the usher's place at the school. My term ofimprisonment was not a long one. Perhaps my youth pleaded for me;perhaps the Bristol magistrates took into consideration the timeI had passed in irons on board ship. Anyhow, I was just turnedseventeen when I found myself out on the world again. I had nofriends to receive me; I had no place to go to. A sailor's life,after what had happened, was a life I recoiled from in disgust.I stood in the crowd on the bridge at Bristol, wondering what Ishould do with my freedom now I had got it back. Whether I hadaltered in the prison, or whether I was feeling the change incharacter that comes with coming manhood, I don't know; but theold reckless enjoyment of the old vagabond life seemed quite wornout of my nature. An awful sense of loneliness kept me wanderingabout Bristol, in horror of the quiet country, till afternightfall. I looked at the lights kindling in the parlor windows,with a miserable envy of the happy people inside. A word ofadvice would have been worth something to me at that time. Well!I got it: a policeman advised me to move on. He was quite right;what else could I do? I looked up at the sky, and there was myold friend of many a night's watch at sea, the north star. 'Allpoints of the compass are alike to me,' I thought to myself;'I'll go _your_ way.' Not even the star would keep me companythat night. It got behind a cloud, and left me alone in the rainand darkness. I groped my way to a cart-shed, fell asleep, anddreamed of old times, when I served my gypsy master and livedwith the dogs. God! what I would have given when I woke to havefelt Tommy's little cold muzzle in my hand! Why am I dwelling onthese things? Why don't I get on to the end? You shouldn'tencourage me, sir, by listening, so patiently. After a week moreof wandering, without hope to help me, or prospects to look to,I found myself in the streets of Shrewsbury, staring in at thewindows of a book-seller's shop. An old man came to the shopdoor, looked about him, and saw me. 'Do you want a job?' heasked. 'And are you not above doing it cheap?' The prospect ofhaving something to do, and some human creature to speak a wordto, tempted me, and I did a day's dirty work in the book-seller'swarehouse for a shilling. More work followed at the same rate.In a week I was promoted to sweep out the shop and put up theshutters. In no very long time after, I was trusted to carry thebooks out; and when quarter-day came, and the shop-man left, Itook his place. Wonderful luck! you will say; here I had found myway to a friend at last. I had found my way to one of the mostmerciless misers in England; and I had risen in the little worldof Shrewsbury by the purely commercial process of undersellingall my competitors. The job in the warehouse had been declinedat the price by every idle man in the town, and I did it. Theregular porter received his weekly pittance under weekly protest.I took two shillings less, and made no complaint. The shop-mangave warning on the ground that he was underfed as well asunderpaid. I received half his salary, and lived contentedly onhis reversionary scraps. Never were two men so well suited toeach other as that book-seller and I. _His_ one object in lifewas to find somebody who would work for him at starvation wages._My_ one object in life was to find somebody who would give me anasylum over my head. Without a single sympathy in common--withouta vestige of feeling of any sort, hostile or friendly, growing upbetween us on either side--without wishing each other good-nightwhen we parted on the house stairs, or good-morning when we metat the shop counter, we lived alone in that house, strangers fromfirst to last, for two whole years. A dismal existence for a ladof my age, was it not? You are a clergyman and a scholar--surelyyou can guess what made the life endurable to me?"

Mr. Brock remembered the well-worn volumes which had been foundin the usher's bag. "The books made it endurable to you," hesaid.

The eyes of the castaway kindled with a new light.

"Yes!" he said, "the books--the generous friends who met mewithout suspicion--the merciful masters who never used me ill!The only years of my life that I can look back on with somethinglike pride are the years I passed in the miser's house. The onlyunalloyed pleasure I have ever tasted is the pleasure that Ifound for myself on the miser's shelves. Early and late, throughthe long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at thefountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the draught. Therewere few customers to serve, for the books were mostly of thesolid and scholarly kind. No responsibilities rested on me, forthe accounts were kept by my master, and only the small sums ofmoney were suffered to pass through my hands. He soon found outenough of me to know that my honesty was to be trusted, and thatmy patience might be counted on, treat me as he might. The oneinsight into _his_ character which I obtained, on my side,widened the distance between us to its last limits. He was aconfirmed opium-eater in secret--a prodigal in laudanum, though amiser in all besides. He never confessed his frailty, and I nevertold him I had found it out. He had his pleasure apart from me,and I had my pleasure apart from _him_. Week after week, monthafter month, there we sat, without a friendly word ever passingbetween us--I, alone with my book at the counter; he, alone withhis ledger in the parlor, dimly visible to me through the dirtywindow-pane of the glass door, sometimes poring over his figures,sometimes lost and motionless for hours in the ecstasy of hisopium trance. Time passed, and made no impression on us; theseasons of two years came and went, and found us still unchanged.One morning, at the opening of the third year, my master did notappear, as usual, to give me my allowance for breakfast. I wentupstairs, and found him helpless in his bed. He refused to trustme with the keys of the cupboard, or to let me send for a doctor.I bought a morsel of bread, and went back to my books, with nomore feeling for _him_ (I honestly confess it) than he would havehad for _me_ under the same circumstances. An hour or two later Iwas roused from my reading by an occasional customer of ours, aretired medical man. He went upstairs. I was glad to get rid ofhim and return to my books. He came down again, and disturbed meonce more. 'I don't much like you, my lad,' he said; 'but I thinkit my duty to say that you will soon have to shift for yourself.You are no great favorite in the town, and you may have somedifficulty in finding a new place. Provide yourself with awritten character from your master before it is too late.' Hespoke to me coldly. I thanked him coldly on my side, and got mycharacter the same day. Do you think my master let me have it fornothing? Not he! He bargained with me on his deathbed. I was hiscreditor for a month's salary, and he wouldn't write a line of mytestimonial until I had first promised to forgive him the debt.Three days afterward he died, enjoying to the last the happinessof having overreached his shop-man. 'Aha!' he whispered, when thedoctor formally summoned me to take leave of him, 'I got youcheap!' Was Ozias Midwinter's stick as cruel as that? I thinknot. Well! there I was, out on the world again, but surely withbetter prospects this time. I had taught myself to read Latin,Greek, and German; and I had got my written character to speakfor me. All useless! The doctor was quite right; I was not likedin the town. The lower order of the people despised me forselling my services to the miser at the miser's price. As forthe better classes, I did with them (God knows how!) what I havealways done with everybody except Mr. Armadale--I produced adisagreeable impression at first sight; I couldn't mend itafterward; and there was an end of me in respectable quarters. Itis quite likely I might have spent all my savings, my puny littlegolden offspring of two years' miserable growth, but for a schooladvertisement which I saw in a local paper. The heartlessly meanterms that were offered encouraged me to apply; and I got theplace. How I prospered in it, and what became of me next, thereis no need to tell you. The thread of my story is all wound off;my vagabond life stands stripped of its mystery; and you know theworst of me at last."

A moment of silence followed those closing words. Midwinter rosefrom the window-seat, and came back to the table with the letterfrom Wildbad in his hand.

"My father's confession has told you who I am; and my ownconfession has told you what my life has been," he said,addressing Mr. Brock, without taking the chair to which therector pointed. "I promised to make a clean breast of it when Ifirst asked leave to enter this room. Have I kept my word?"

"It is impossible to doubt it," replied Mr. Brock. "You haveestablished your claim on my confidence and my sympathy. I shouldbe insensible, indeed, if I could know what I now know of yourchildhood and your youth, and not feel something of Allan'skindness for Allan's friend."

"Thank you, sir," said Midwinter, simply and gravely.

He sat down opposite Mr. Brook at the table for the first time.

"In a few hours you will have left this place," he proceeded. "IfI can help you to leave it with your mind at ease, I will. Thereis more to be said between us than we have said up to this time.My future relations with Mr. Armadale are still left undecided;and the serious question raised by my father's letter is aquestion which we have neither of us faced yet."

He paused, and looked with a momentary impatience at the candlestill burning on the table, in the morning light. The struggle tospeak with composure, and to keep his own feelings stoically outof view, was evidently growing harder and harder to him.

"It may possibly help your decision," he went on, "if I tell youhow I determined to act toward Mr. Armadale--in the matter of thesimilarity of our names--when I first read this letter, and whenI had composed myself sufficiently to be able to think at all."He stopped, and cast a second impatient look at the lightedcandle. "Will you excuse the odd fancy of an odd man?" he asked,with a faint smile. "I want to put out the candle: I want tospeak of the new subject, in the new light."

He extinguished the candle as he spoke, and let the firsttenderness of the daylight flow uninterruptedly into the room.

"I must once more ask your patience," he resumed, "if I returnfor a moment to myself and my circumstances. I have already toldyou that my stepfather made an attempt to discover me some yearsafter I had turned my back on the Scotch school. He took thatstep out of no anxiety of his own, but simply as the agent of myfather's trustees. In the exercise of their discretion, they hadsold the estates in Barbadoes (at the time of the emancipation ofthe slaves, and the ruin of West Indian property) for what theestates would fetch. Having invested the proceeds, they werebound to set aside a sum for my yearly education. Thisresponsibility obliged them to make the attempt to trace me--afruitless attempt, as you already know. A little later (as I havebeen since informed) I was publicly addressed by an advertisementin the newspapers, which I never saw. Later still, when I wastwenty-one, a second advertisement appeared (which I did see)offering a reward for evidence of my death. If I was alive, I hada right to my half share of the proceeds of the estates on comingof age; if dead, the money reverted to my mother. I went to thelawyers, and heard from them what I have just told you. Aftersome difficulty in proving my identity--and after an interviewwith my stepfather, and a message from my mother, which hashopelessly widened the old breach between us--my claim wasallowed; and my money is now invested for me in the funds, underthe name that is really my own."

Mr. Brock drew eagerly nearer to the table. He saw the end now towhich the speaker was tending

"Twice a year," Midwinter pursued, "I must sign my own name toget my own income. At all other times, and under all othercircumstances, I may hide my identity under any name I please. AsOzias Midwinter, Mr. Armadale first knew me; as Ozias Midwinterhe shall know me to the end of my days. Whatever may be theresult of this interview--whether I win your confidence orwhether I lose it--of one thing you may feel sure: your pupilshall never know the horrible secret which I have trusted to yourkeeping. This is no extraordinary resolution; for, as you knowalready, it costs me no sacrifice of feeling to keep my assumedname. There is nothing in my conduct to praise; it comesnaturally out of the gratitude of a thankful man. Review thecircumstances for yourself, sir, and set my own horror ofrevealing them to Mr. Armadale out of the question. If the storyof the names is ever told, there can be no limiting it to thedisclosure of my father's crime; it must go back to the story ofMrs. Armadale's marriage. I have heard her son talk of her; Iknow how he loves her memory. As God is my witness, he shallnever love it less dearly through _me_!"

Simply as the words were spoken, they touched the deepestsympathies in the rector's nature: they took his thoughts back toMrs. Armadale's deathbed. There sat the man against whom she hadignorantly warned him in her son's interests; and that man, ofhis own free-will, had laid on himself the obligation ofrespecting her secret for her son's sake! The memory of his ownpast efforts to destroy the very friendship out of which thisresolution had sprung rose and reproached Mr. Brock. He held outhis hand to Midwinter for the first time. "In her name, and inher son's name," he said, warmly, "I thank you."

Without replying, Midwinter spread the confession open before himon the table.

"I think I have said all that it was my duty to say," he began,"before we could approach the consideration of this letter.Whatever may have appeared strange in my conduct toward you andtoward Mr. Armadale may be now trusted to explain itself. You caneasily imagine the natural curiosity and surprise that I musthave felt (ignorant as I then was of the truth) when the sound ofMr. Armadale's name first startled me as the echo of my own. Youwill readily understand that I only hesitated to tell him I washis namesake, because I hesitated to damage my position--in yourestimation, if not in his--by confessing that I had come amongyou under an assumed name. And, after all that you have justheard of my vagabond life and my low associates, you will hardlywonder at the obstinate silence I maintained about myself, at atime when I did not feel the sense of responsibility which myfather's confession has laid on me. We can return to these smallpersonal explanations, if you wish it, at another time; theycannot be suffered to keep us from the greater interests which wemust settle before you leave this place. We may come now--" Hisvoice faltered, and he suddenly turned his face toward thewindow, so as to hide it from the rector's view. "We may comenow," he repeated, his hand trembling visibly as it held thepage, "to the murder on board the timber-ship, and to the warningthat has followed me from my father's grave."

Softly--as if he feared they might reach Allan, sleeping in theneighboring room--he read the last terrible words which theScotchman's pen had written at Wildbad, as they fell from hisfather's lips:

"Avoid the widow of the man I killed--if the widow still lives.Avoid the maid whose wicked hand smoothed the way to themarriage--if the maid is still in her service. And, more thanall, avoid the man who bears the same name as your own. Offendyour best benefactor, if that benefactor's influence hasconnected you one with the other. Desert the woman who loves you,if that woman is a link between you and him. Hide yourself fromhim under an assumed name. Put the mountains and the seas betweenyou; be ungrateful; be unforgiving; be all that is most repellentto your own gentler nature, rather than live under the same roofand breathe the same air with that man. Never let the two AllanArmadales meet in this world; never, never, never!"

After reading those sentences, he pushed the manuscript from him,without looking up. The fatal reserve which he had been in a fairway of conquering but a few minutes since, possessed itself ofhim once more. Again his eyes wandered; again his voice sank intone. A stranger who had heard his story, and who saw him now,would have said, "His look is lurking, his manner is bad; he is,every inch of him, his father's son."

"I have a question to ask you," said Mr. Brock, breaking thesilence between them, on his side. "Why have you just read thatpassage in your father's letter?"

"To force me into telling you the truth," was the answer. "Youmust know how much there is of my father in me before you trustme to be Mr. Armadale's friend. I got my letter yesterday, in themorning. Some inner warning troubled me, and I went down on thesea-shore by myself before I broke the seal. Do you believe thedead can come back to the world they once lived in? I believe myfather came back in that bright morning light, through the glareof that broad sunshine and the roar of that joyful sea, andwatched me while I read. When I got to the words that you havejust heard, and when I knew that the very end which he had dieddreading was the end that had really come, I felt the horror thathad crept over him in his last moments creeping over me. Istruggled against myself, as _he_ would have had me struggle. Itried to be all that was most repellent to my own gentler nature;I tried to think pitilessly of putting the mountains and the seasbetween me and the man who bore my name. Hours passed before Icould prevail on myself to go back and run the risk of meetingAllan Armadale in this house. When I did get back, and when hemet me at night on the stairs, I thought I was looking him inthe face as _my_ father looked _his_ father in the face when thecabin door closed between them. Draw your own conclusions, sir.Say, if you like, that the inheritance of my father's heathenbelief in fate is one of the inheritances he has left to me. Iwon't dispute it; I won't deny that all through yesterday _his_superstition was _my_ superstition. The night came before I couldfind my way to calmer and brighter thoughts. But I did find myway. You may set it down in my favor that I lifted myself at lastabove the influence of this horrible letter. Do you know whathelped me?"

"Did you reason with yourself?"

"I can't reason about what I feel."

"Did you quiet your mind by prayer?"

"I was not fit to pray."

"And yet something guided you to the better feeling and the truerview?"

"Something did."

"What was it?"

"My love for Allan Armadale."

He cast a doubting, almost a timid look at Mr. Brock as he gavethat answer, and, suddenly leaving the table, went back to thewindow-seat.

"Have I no right to speak of him in that way?" he asked, keepinghis face hidden from the rector. "Have I not known him longenough; have I not done enough for him yet? Remember what myexperience of other men had been when I first saw his hand heldout to me--when I first heard his voice speaking to me in mysick-room. What had I known of strangers' hands all through mychildhood? I had only known them as hands raised to threaten andto strike me. His hand put my pillow straight, and patted me onthe shoulder, and gave me my food and drink. What had I known ofother men's voices, when I was growing up to be a man myself? Ihad only known them as voices that jeered, voices that cursed,voices that whispered in corners with a vile distrust. _His_voice said to me, 'Cheer up, Midwinter! we'll soon bring youround again. You'll be strong enough in a week to go out for adrive with me in our Somersetshire lanes.' Think of the gypsy'sstick; think of the devils laughing at me when I went by theirwindows with my little dead dog in my arms; think of the masterwho cheated me of my month's salary on his deathbed--and ask yourown heart if the miserable wretch whom Allan Armadale has treatedas his equal and his friend has said too much in saying that heloves him? I do love him! It _will_ come out of me; I can't keepit back. I love the very ground he treads on! I would give mylife--yes, the life that is precious to me now, because hiskindness has made it a happy one--I tell you I would give mylife--"

The next words died away on his lips; the hysterical passionrose, and conquered him. He stretched out one of his hands witha wild gesture of entreaty to Mr. Brock; his head sank on thewindow-sill and he burst into tears.

Even then the hard discipline of the man's life asserted itself.He expected no sympathy, he counted on no merciful human respectfor human weakness. The cruel necessity of self-suppression waspresent to his mind, while the tears were pouring over hischeeks. "Give me a minute," he said, faintly. "I'll fight it downin a minute; I won't distress you in this way again."

True to his resolution, in a minute he had fought it down. In aminute more he was able to speak calmly.

"We will get back, sir, to those better thoughts which havebrought me from my room to yours," he resumed. "I can only repeatthat I should never have torn myself from the hold which thisletter fastened on me, if I had not loved Allan Armadale with allthat I have in me of a brother's love. I said to myself, 'If thethought of leaving him breaks my heart, the thought of leavinghim is wrong!' That was some hours since, and I am in the samemind still. I can't believe--I won't believe--that a friendshipwhich has grown out of nothing but kindness on one side, andnothing but gratitude on the other, is destined to lead to anevil end. Judge, you who are a clergyman, between the deadfather, whose word is in these pages, and the living son, whoseword is now on his lips! What is it appointed me to do, now thatI am breathing the same air, and living under the same roof withthe son of the man whom my father killed--to perpetuate myfather's crime by mortally injuring him, or to atone for myfather's crime by giving him the devotion of my whole life? Thelast of those two faiths is my faith, and shall be my faith,happen what may. In the strength of that better conviction, Ihave come here to trust you with my father's secret, and toconfess the wretched story of my own life. In the strength ofthat better conviction, I can face you resolutely with the oneplain question, which marks the one plain end of all that I havecome here to say. Your pupil stands at the starting-point of hisnew career, in a position singularly friendless; his one greatneed is a companion of his own age on whom he can rely. The timehas come, sir, to decide whether I am to be that companion ornot. After all you have heard of Ozias Midwinter, tell meplainly, will you trust him to be Allan Armadale's friend?"

Mr. Brock met that fearlessly frank question by a fearlessfrankness on his side.

"I believe you love Allan," he said, "and I believe you havespoken the truth. A man who has produced that impression on meis a man whom I am bound to trust. I trust you."

Midwinter started to his feet, his dark face flushing deep; hiseyes fixed brightly and steadily, at last, on the rector's face."A light!" he exclaimed, tearing the pages of his father'sletter, one by one, from the fastening that held them. "Let usdestroy the last link that holds us to the horrible past! Let ussee this confession a heap of ashes before we part!"

"Wait!" said Mr. Brock. "Before you burn it, there is a reasonfor looking at it once more."

The parted leaves of the manuscript dropped from Midwinter'shands. Mr. Brock took them up, and sorted them carefully untilhe found the last page.

"I view your father's superstition as you view it," said therector. "But there is a warning given you here, which you willdo well (for Allan's sake and for your own sake) not to neglect.The last link with the past will not be destroyed when you haveburned these pages. One of the actors in this story of treacheryand murder is not dead yet. Read those words."

He pushed the page across the table, with his finger on onesentence. Midwinter's agitation misled him. He mistook theindication, and read, "Avoid the widow of the man I killed,if the widow still lives."

"Not that sentence," said the rector. "The next."

Midwinter read it: "Avoid the maid whose wicked hand smoothed theway to the marriage, if the maid is still in her service."

"The maid and the mistress parted," said Mr. Brock, "at the timeof the mistress's marriage. The maid and the mistress met againat Mrs. Armadale's residence in Somersetshire last year. I myselfmet the woman in the village, and I myself know that her visithastened Mrs. Armadale's death. Wait a little, and composeyourself; I see I have startled you."

He waited as he was bid, his color fading away to a gray palenessand the light in his clear brown eyes dying out slowly. What therector had said had produced no transient impression on him;there was more than doubt, there was alarm in his face, as he satlost in his own thought. Was the struggle of the past nightrenewing itself already? Did he feel the horror of his hereditarysuperstition creeping over him again?

"Can you put me on my guard against her?" he asked, after a longinterval of silence. "Can you tell me her name?"

"I can only tell you what Mrs. Armadale told me," answered Mr.Brock. "The woman acknowledged having been married in the longinterval since she and her mistress had last met. But not a wordmore escaped her about her past life. She came to Mrs. Armadaleto ask for money, under a plea of distress. She got the money,and she left the house, positively refusing, when the questionwas put to her, to mention her married name."

"You saw her yourself in the village. What was she like?"

"She kept her veil down. I can't tell you."

"You can tell me what you _did_ see?"

"Certainly. I saw, as she approached me, that she moved verygracefully, that she had a beautiful figure, and that she was alittle over the middle height. I noticed, when she asked me theway to Mrs. Armadale's house, that her manner was the manner ofa lady, and that the tone of her voice was remarkably soft andwinning. Lastly, I remembered afterward that she wore a thickblack veil, a black bonnet, a black silk dress, and a red Paisleyshawl. I feel all the importance of your possessing some bettermeans of identifying her than I can give you. But unhappily--"

He stopped. Midwinter was leaning eagerly across the table, andMidwinter's hand was laid suddenly on his arm.

"Is it possible that you know the woman?" asked Mr. Brock,surprised at the sudden change in his manner.

"No."

"What have I said, then, that has startled you so?"

"Do you remember the woman who threw herself from the riversteamer?" asked the other--"the woman who caused that successionof deaths which opened Allan Armadale's way to the Thorpe Ambroseestate?"

"I remember the description of her in the police report,"answered the rector.

"_That_ woman," pursued Midwinter, "moved gracefully, and had abeautiful figure. _That_ woman wore a black veil, a black bonnet,a black silk gown, and a red Paisley shawl--" He stopped,released his hold of Mr. Brock's arm, and abruptly resumed hischair. "Can it be the same?" he said to himself in a whisper."_Is_ there a fatality that follows men in the dark? And is itfollowing _us_ in that woman's footsteps?"

If the conjecture was right, the one event in the past which hadappeared to be entirely disconnected with the events that hadpreceded it was, on the contrary, the one missing link whichmade the chain complete. Mr. Brock's comfortable common senseinstinctively denied that startling conclusion. He looked atMidwinter with a compassionate smile.

"My young friend," he said, kindly, "have you cleared your mindof all superstition as completely as you think? Is what you havejust said worthy of the better resolution at which you arrivedlast night?"

Midwinter's head drooped on his breast; the color rushed backover his face; he sighed bitterly.

"I believe in your sincerity as firmly as ever," answered Mr.Brock. "I only doubt whether you have fortified the weak placesin your nature as strongly as you yourself suppose. Many a manhas lost the battle against himself far oftener than you havelost it yet, and has nevertheless won his victory in the end.I don't blame you, I don't distrust you. I only notice what hashappened, to put you on your guard against yourself. Come! come!Let your own better sense help you; and you will agree with methat there is really no evidence to justify the suspicion thatthe woman whom I met in Somersetshire, and the woman whoattempted suicide in London, are one and the same. Need an oldman like me remind a young man like you that there are thousandsof women in England with beautiful figures--thousands of womenwho are quietly dressed in black silk gowns and red Paisleyshawls?"

Midwinter caught eagerly at the suggestion; too eagerly, as itmight have occurred to a harder critic on humanity than Mr.Brock.

"You are quite right, sir," he said, "and I am quite wrong. Tensof thousands of women answer the description, as you say. I havebeen wasting time on my own idle fancies, when I ought to havebeen carefully gathering up facts. If this woman ever attempts tofind her way to Allan, I must be prepared to stop her." He begansearching restlessly among the manuscript leaves scattered aboutthe table, paused over one of the pages, and examined itattentively. 'This helps me to something positive," he went on;"this helps me to a knowledge of her age. She was twelve at thetime of Mrs. Armadale's marriage; add a year, and bring her tothirteen; add Allan's age (twenty-two), and we make her a womanof five-and-thirty at the present time. I know her age; and Iknow that she has her own reasons for being silent about hermarried life. This is something gained at the outset, and it maylead, in time, to something more." He looked up brightly again atMr. Brock. "Am I in the right way now, sir? Am I doing my best toprofit by the caution which you have kindly given me?"

"You are vindicating your own better sense," answered the rector,encouraging him to trample down his own imagination, with anEnglishman's ready distrust of the noblest of the humanfaculties. "You are paving the way for your own happier life."

"Am I?" said the other, thoughtfully.

He searched among the papers once more, and stopped at another ofthe scattered pages.

"The ship!" he exclaimed, suddenly, his color changing again, andhis manner altering on the instant.

"What ship?" asked the rector.

"The ship in which the deed was done," Midwinter answered, withthe first signs of impatience that he had shown yet. "The ship inwhich my father's murderous hand turned the lock of the cabindoor."

"What of it?" said Mr. Brock.

He appeared not to hear the question; his eyes remained fixedintently on the page that he was reading.

"A French vessel, employed in the timber trade," he said, stillspeaking to himself--"a French vessel, named _La Grace de Dieu_.If my father's belief had been the right belief--if the fatalityhad been following me, step by step, from my father's grave, inone or other of my voyages, I should have fallen in with thatship." He looked up again at Mr. Brock. "I am quite sure aboutit now," he said. "Those women are two, and not one."

Mr. Brock shook his head.

"I am glad you have come to that conclusion," he said. "But Iwish you had reached it in some other way."

Midwinter started passionately to his feet, and, seizing on thepages of the manuscript with both hands, flung them into theempty fireplace.

"For God's sake let me burn it!" he exclaimed. "As long as thereis a page left, I shall read it. And, as long as I read it, myfather gets the better of me, in spite of myself!"

Mr. Brock pointed to the match-box. In another moment theconfession was in flames. When the fire had consumed the lastmorsel of paper, Midwinter drew a deep breath of relief.

"I may say, like Macbeth: 'Why, so, being gone, I am a managain!'" he broke out with a feverish gayety. "You look fatigued,sir; and no wonder," he added, in a lower tone. "I have kept youtoo long from your rest--I will keep you no longer. Depend on myremembering what you have told me; depend on my standing betweenAllan and any enemy, man or woman, who comes near him. Thank you,Mr. Brock; a thousand thousand times, thank you! I came into thisroom the most wretched of living men; I can leave it now as happyas the birds that are singing outside!"

As he turned to the door, the rays of the rising sun streamedthrough the window, and touched the heap of ashes lying black inthe black fireplace. The sensitive imagination of Midwinterkindled instantly at the sight.

"Look!" he said, joyously. "The promise of the Future shiningover the ashes of the Past!"

An inexplicable pity for the man, at the moment of his life whenhe needed pity least, stole over the rector's heart when the doorhad closed, and he was left by himself again.

"Poor fellow! " he said, with an uneasy surprise at his owncompassionate impulse. "Poor fellow!"

CHAPTER III.

DAY AND NIGHT

The morning hours had passed; the noon had come and gone; and Mr.Brock had started on the first stage of his journey home.

After parting from the rector in Douglas Harbor, the two youngmen had returned to Castletown, and had there separated at thehotel door, Allan walking down to the waterside to look after hisyacht, and Midwinter entering the house to get the rest that heneeded after a sleepless night.

He darkened his room; he closed his eyes, but no sleep came tohim. On this first day of the rector's absence, his sensitivenature extravagantly exaggerated the responsibility which he nowheld in trust for Mr. Brock. A nervous dread of leaving Allan byhimself, even for a few hours only, kept him waking and doubting,until it became a relief rather than a hardship to rise from thebed again, and, following in Allan's footsteps, to take the wayto the waterside which led to the yacht.

The repairs of the little vessel were nearly completed. It was abreezy, cheerful day; the land was bright, the water was blue,the quick waves leaped crisply in the sunshine, the men weresinging at their work. Descending to the cabin, Midwinterdiscovered his friend busily occupied in attempting to set theplace to rights. Habitually the least systematic of mortals,Allan now and then awoke to an overwhelming sense of theadvantages of order, and on such occasions a perfect frenzy oftidiness possessed him. He was down on his knees, hotly andwildly at work, when Midwinter looked in on him; and was fastreducing the neat little world of the cabin to its originalelements of chaos, with a misdirected energy wonderful to see.

"Here's a mess!" said Allan, rising composedly on the horizon ofhis own accumulated litter. "Do you know, my dear fellow, I beginto wish I had let well alone!"

Midwinter smiled, and came to his friend's assistance with thenatural neat-handedness of a sailor.

The first object that he encountered was Allan's dressing-case,turned upside down, with half the contents scattered on thefloor, and with a duster and a hearth-broom lying among them.Replacing the various objects which formed the furniture of thedressing-case one by one, Midwinter lighted unexpectedly on aminiature portrait, of the old-fashioned oval form, primly framedin a setting of small diamonds.

"You don't seem to set much value on this," he said. "What isit?"

Allan bent over him, and looked at the miniature. "It belonged tomy mother," he answered; "and I set the greatest value on it. Itis a portrait of my father."

Midwinter put the miniature abruptly, into Allan's hands, andwithdrew to the opposite side of the cabin.

"You know best where the things ought to be put in your owndressing-case," he said, keeping his back turned on Allan. "I'llmake the place tidy on this side of the cabin, and you shallmake the place tidy on the other."

He began setting in order the litter scattered about him on thecabin table and on the floor. But it seemed as if fate haddecided that his friend's personal possessions should fall intohis hands that morning, employ them where he might. One among thefirst objects which he took up was Allan's tobacco jar, with thestopper missing, and with a letter (which appeared by the bulk ofit to contain inclosures) crumpled into the mouth of the jar inthe stopper's place.

"Did you know that you had put this here?" he asked. "Is theletter of any importance?"

Allan recognized it instantly. It was the first of the littleseries of letters which had followed the cruising party to theIsle of Man--the letter which young Armadale had briefly referredto as bringing him "more worries from those everlasting lawyers,"and had then dismissed from further notice as recklessly asusual.

"This is what comes of being particularly careful," said Allan;"here is an instance of my extreme thoughtfulness. You may notthink it but I put the letter there on purpose. Every time I wentto the jar, you know, I was sure to see the letter; and everytime I saw the letter, I was sure to say to myself, 'This must beanswered.' There's nothing to laugh at; it was a perfectlysensible arrangement, if I could only have remembered where I putthe jar. Suppose I tie a knot in my pocket-handkerchief thistime? You have a wonderful memory, my dear fellow. Perhaps you'llremind me in the course of the day, in case I forget the knotnext."

"Here is your writing-case," he said; "why not answer the letterat once? If you put it away again, you may forget it again."

"Very true," returned Allan. "But the worst of it is, I can'tquite make up my mind what answer to write. I want a word ofadvice. Come and sit down here, and I'll tell you all about it."

With his loud boyish laugh--echoed by Midwinter, who caught theinfection of his gayety--he swept a heap of miscellaneousincumbrances off the cabin sofa, and made room for his friendand himself to take their places. In the high flow of youthfulspirits, the two sat down to their trifling consultation over aletter lost in a tobacco jar. It was a memorable moment to bothof them, lightly as they thought of it at the time. Before theyhad risen again from their places, they had taken the firstirrevocable step together on the dark and tortuous road of theirfuture lives.

Reduced to plain facts, the question on which Allan now requiredhis friend's advice may be stated as follows:

While the various arrangements connected with the succession toThorpe Ambrose were in progress of settlement, and while the newpossessor of the estate was still in London, a question hadnecessarily arisen relating to the person who should be appointedto manage the property. The steward employed by the Blanchardfamily had written, without loss of time, to offer his services.Although a perfectly competent and trustworthy man, he failed tofind favor in the eyes of the new proprietor. Acting, as usual,on his first impulses, and resolved, at all hazards, to installMidwinter as a permanent inmate at Thorpe Ambrose, Allan haddetermined that the steward's place was the place exactly fittedfor his friend, for the simple reason that it would necessarilyoblige his friend to live with him on the estate. He hadaccordingly written to decline the proposal made to him withoutconsulting Mr. Brock, whose disapproval he had good reason tofear; and without telling Midwinter, who would probably (if achance were allowed him of choosing) have declined taking asituation which his previous training had by no means fitted himto fill.

Further correspondence had followed this decision, and had raisedtwo new difficulties which looked a little embarrassing on theface of them, but which Allan, with the assistance of his lawyer,easily contrived to solve. The first difficulty, of examining theoutgoing steward's books, was settled by sending a professionalaccountant to Thorpe Ambrose; and the second difficulty, ofputting the steward's empty cottage to some profitable use(Allan's plans for his friend comprehending Midwinter's residenceunder his own roof), was met by placing the cottage on the listof an active house agent in the neighboring county town. In thisstate the arrangements had been left when Allan quitted London.He had heard and thought nothing more of the matter, until aletter from his lawyers had followed him to the Isle of Man,inclosing two proposals to occupy the cottage, both received onthe same day, and requesting to hear, at his earliestconvenience, which of the two he was prepared to accept.

Finding himself, after having conveniently forgotten the subjectfor some days past, placed face to face once more with thenecessity for decision, Allan now put the two proposals intohis friend's hands, and, after a rambling explanation of thecircumstances of the case, requested to be favored with a wordof advice. Instead of examining the proposals, Midwinterunceremoniously put them aside, and asked the two very naturaland very awkward questions of who the new steward was to be,and why he was to live in Allan's house?

"I'll tell you who, and I'll tell you why, when we get to ThorpeAmbrose," said Allan. "In the meantime we'll call the steward X.Y. Z., and we'll say he lives with me, because I'm devilishsharp, and I mean to keep him under my own eye. You needn't looksurprised. I know the man thoroughly well; he requires a gooddeal of management. If I offered him the steward's placebeforehand, his modesty would get in his way, and he would say'No.' If I pitch him into it neck and crop, without a word ofwarning and with nobody at hand to relieve him of the situation,he'll have nothing for it but to consult my interests, and say'Yes.' X. Y. Z. is not at all a bad fellow, I can tell you.You'll see him when we go to Thorpe Ambrose; and I rather thinkyou and he will get on uncommonly well together."

The humorous twinkle in Allan's eye, the sly significance inAllan's voice, would have betrayed his secret to a prosperousman. Midwinter was as far from suspecting it as the carpenterswho were at work above them on the deck of the yacht.

"Is there no steward now on the estate?" he asked, his faceshowing plainly that he was far from feeling satisfied withAllan's answer. "Is the business neglected all this time?"

"Nothing of the sort!" returned Allan. "The business is goingwith 'a wet sheet and a flowing sea, and a wind that followsfree.' I'm not joking; I'm only metaphorical. A regularaccountant has poked his nose into the books, and a steady-goinglawyer's clerk attends at the office once a week. That doesn'tlook like neglect, does it? Leave the new steward alone for thepresent, and just tell me which of those two tenants you wouldtake, if you were in my place."

Midwinter opened the proposals, and read them attentively.

The first proposal was from no less a person than the solicitorat Thorpe Ambrose, who had first informed Allan at Paris of thelarge fortune that had fallen into his hands. This gentlemanwrote personally to say that he had long admired the cottage,which was charmingly situated within the limits of the ThorpeAmbrose grounds. He was a bachelor, of studious habits, desirousof retiring to a country seclusion after the wear and tear ofhis business hours; and he ventured to say that Mr. Armadale, inaccepting him as a tenant, might count on securing an unobtrusiveneighbor, and on putting the cottage into responsible and carefulhands.

The second proposal came through the house agent, and proceededfrom a total stranger. The tenant who offered for the cottage, inthis case, was a retired officer in the army--one Major Milroy.His family merely consisted of an invalid wife and an onlychild--a young lady. His references were unexceptionable; and he,too, was especially anxious to secure the cottage, as the perfectquiet of the situation was exactly what was required by Mrs.Milroy in her feeble state of health.

"Well, which profession shall I favor?" asked Allan. "The army orthe law?"

"There seems to me to be no doubt about it," said Midwinter."The lawyer has been already in correspondence with you; and thelawyer's claim is, therefore, the claim to be preferred."

"I knew you would say that. In all the thousands of times Ihave asked other people for advice, I never yet got the adviceI wanted. Here's this business of letting the cottage as aninstance. I'm all on the other side myself. I want to have themajor."

"Why?"

Young Armadale laid his forefinger on that part of the agent'sletter which enumerated Major Milroy's family, and whichcontained the three words--"a young lady."

"I'll try to be, if you like. I know I ought to take the lawyer;but what can I do if the major's daughter keeps running in myhead?"

Midwinter returned resolutely to the just and sensible view ofthe matter, and pressed it on his friend's attention with all thepersuasion of which he was master. After listening with exemplarypatience until he had done, Allan swept a supplementaryaccumulation of litter off the cabin table, and produced from hiswaistcoat pocket a half-crown coin.

"I've got an entirely new idea," he said. "Let's leave it tochance."

The absurdity of the proposal--as coming from a landlord--wasirresistible. Midwinter's gravity deserted him.

"I'll spin," continued Allan, "and you shall call. We must giveprecedence to the army, of course; so we'll say Heads, the major;Tails, the lawyer. One spin to decide. Now, then, look out!"

He spun the half-crown on the cabin table.

"Tails!" cried Midwinter, humoring what he believed to be one ofAllan's boyish jokes.

The coin fell on the table with the Head uppermost.

"You don't mean to say you are really in earnest!" saidMidwinter, as the other opened his writing-case and dipped hispen in the ink.

"Oh, but I am, though!" replied Allan. "Chance is on my side,and Miss Milroy's; and you're outvoted, two to one. It's no usearguing. The major has fallen uppermost, and the major shallhave the cottage. I won't leave it to the lawyers; they'll onlybe worrying me with more letters. I'll write myself."

He wrote his answers to the two proposals, literally in twominutes. One to the house agent: "Dear sir, I accept MajorMilroy's offer; let him come in when he pleases. Yours truly,Allan Armadale." And one to the lawyer: "Dear sir, I regret thatcircumstances prevent me from accepting your proposal. Yourstruly," etc. "People make a fuss about letter-writing," Allanremarked, when he had done. "_I_ find it easy enough."

He wrote the addresses on his two notes, and stamped them forthe post, whistling gayly. While he had been writing, he had notnoticed how his friend was occupied. When he had done, it struckhim that a sudden silence had fallen on the cabin; and, lookingup, he observed that Midwinter's whole attention was strangelyconcentrated on the half crown as it lay head uppermost on thetable. Allan suspended his whistling in astonishment.

"What on earth are you doing?" he asked.

"I was only wondering," replied Midwinter.

"What about?" persisted Allan.

"I was wondering," said the other, handing him back thehalf-crown, "whether there is such a thing as chance."

Half an hour later the two notes were posted; and Allan, whoseclose superintendence of the repairs of the yacht had hithertoallowed him but little leisure time on shore, had proposed towhile away the idle hours by taking a walk in Castletown. EvenMidwinter's nervous anxiety to deserve Mr. Brock's confidence inhim could detect nothing objectionable in this harmless proposal,and the young men set forth together to see what they could makeof the metropolis of the Isle of Man.

It is doubtful if there is a place on the habitable globe which,regarded as a sight-seeing investment offering itself to thespare attention of strangers, yields so small a percentage ofinterest in return as Castletown. Beginning with the waterside,there was an inner harbor to see, with a drawbridge to letvessels through; an outer harbor, ending in a dwarf lighthouse;a view of a flat coast to the right, and a view of a flat coastto the left. In the central solitudes of the city, there was asquat gray building called "the castle"; also a memorial pillardedicated to one Governor Smelt, with a flat top for a statue,and no statue standing on it; also a barrack, holding thehalf-company of soldiers allotted to the island, and exhibitingone spirit-broken sentry at its lonely door. The prevalent colorof the town was faint gray. The few shops open were parted atfrequent intervals by other shops closed and deserted in despair.The weary lounging of boatmen on shore was trebly weary here; theyouth of the district smoked together in speechless depressionunder the lee of a dead wall; the ragged children saidmechanically: "Give us a penny," and before the charitablehand could search the merciful pocket, lapsed away again inmisanthropic doubt of the human nature they addressed. Thesilence of the grave overflowed the churchyard, and filled thismiserable town. But one edifice, prosperous to look at, roseconsolatory in the desolation of these dreadful streets.Frequented by the students of the neighboring "College of KingWilliam," this building was naturally dedicated to the uses of apastry-cook's shop. Here, at least (viewed through the friendlymedium of the window), there was something going on for astranger to see; for here, on high stools, the pupils of thecollege sat, with swinging legs and slowly moving jaws, and,hushed in the horrid stillness of Castletown, gorged their pastrygravely, in an atmosphere of awful silence.

"Hang me if I can look any longer at the boys and the tarts!"said Allan, dragging his friend away from the pastry-cook's shop."Let's try if we can't find something else to amuse us in thenext street."

The first amusing object which the next street presented was acarver-and-gilder's shop, expiring feebly in the last stage ofcommercial decay. The counter inside displayed nothing to viewbut the recumbent head of a boy, peacefully asleep in theunbroken solitude of the place. In the window were exhibited tothe passing stranger three forlorn little fly-spotted frames; asmall posting-bill, dusty with long-continued neglect, announcingthat the premises were to let; and one colored print, the last ofa series illustrating the horrors of drunkenness, on the fiercesttemperance principles. The composition--representing an emptybottle of gin, an immensely spacious garret, a perpendicularScripture reader, and a horizontal expiring family--appealed topublic favor, under the entirely unobjectionable title of "TheHand of Death." Allan's resolution to extract amusement fromCastletown by main force had resisted a great deal, but it failedhim at this stage of the investigations. He suggested trying anexcursion to some other place. Midwinter readily agreeing, theywent back to the hotel to make inquiries.

Thanks to the mixed influence of Allan's ready gift offamiliarity, and total want of method in putting his questions,a perfect deluge of information flowed in on the two strangers,relating to every subject but the subject which had actuallybrought them to the hotel. They made various interestingdiscoveries in connection with the laws and constitution of theIsle of Man, and the manners and customs of the natives. ToAllan's delight, the Manxmen spoke of England as of a well-knownadjacent island, situated at a certain distance from the centralempire of the Isle of Man. It was further revealed to the twoEnglishmen that this happy little nation rejoiced in laws of itsown, publicly proclaimed once a year by the governor and the twohead judges, grouped together on the top of an ancient mound,in fancy costumes appropriate to the occasion. Possessing thisenviable institution, the island added to it the inestimableblessing of a local parliament, called the House of Keys, anassembly far in advance of the other parliament belonging to theneighboring island, in this respect--that the members dispensedwith the people, and solemnly elected each other. With theseand many more local particulars, extracted from all sorts andconditions of men in and about the hotel, Allan whiled away theweary time in his own essentially desultory manner, until thegossip died out of itself, and Midwinter (who had been speakingapart with the landlord) quietly recalled him to the matter inhand. The finest coast scenery in the island was said to be tothe westward and the southward, and there was a fishing townin those regions called Port St. Mary, with a hotel at whichtravelers could sleep. If Allan's impressions of Castletown stillinclined him to try an excursion to some other place, he had onlyto say so, and a carriage would be produced immediately. Allanjumped at the proposal, and in ten minutes more he and Midwinterwere on their way to the western wilds of the island.

With trifling incidents, the day of Mr. Brock's departure hadworn on thus far. With trifling incidents, in which not evenMidwinter's nervous watchfulness could see anything to distrust,it was still to proceed, until the night came--a night which oneat least of the two companions was destined to remember to theend of his life.

Before the travelers had advanced two miles on their road, anaccident happened. The horse fell, and the driver reported thatthe animal had seriously injured himself. There was noalternative but to send for another carriage to Castletown,or to get on to Port St. Mary on foot.

Deciding to walk, Midwinter and Allan had not gone far beforethey were overtaken by a gentleman driving alone in an openchaise. He civilly introduced himself as a medical man, livingclose to Port St. Mary, and offered seats in his carriage. Alwaysready to make new acquaintances, Allan at once accepted theproposal. He and the doctor (whose name was ascertained to beHawbury) became friendly and familiar before they had been fiveminutes in the chaise together; Midwinter, sitting behind them,reserved and silent, on the back seat. They separated justoutside Port St. Mary, before Mr. Hawbury's house, Allanboisterously admiring the doctor's neat French windows and prettyflower-garden and lawn, and wringing his hand at parting as ifthey had known each other from boyhood upward. Arrived in PortSt. Mary, the two friends found themselves in a second Castletownon a smaller scale. But the country round, wild, open, and hilly,deserved its reputation. A walk brought them well enough on withthe day--still the harmless, idle day that it had been from thefirst--to see the evening near at hand. After waiting a little toadmire the sun, setting grandly over hill, and heath, and crag,and talking, while they waited, of Mr. Brock and his long journeyhome, they returned to the hotel to order their early supper.Nearer and nearer the night, and the adventure which the nightwas to bring with it, came to the two friends; and still the onlyincidents that happened were incidents to be laughed at, if theywere noticed at all. The supper was badly cooked; thewaiting-maid was impenetrably stupid; the old-fashioned bell-ropein the coffee-room had come down in Allan's hands, and, strikingin its descent a painted china shepherdess on the chimney-piece,had laid the figure in fragments on the floor. Events as triflingas these were still the only events that had happened, when thetwilight faded, and the lighted candles were brought into theroom.

Finding Midwinter, after the double fatigue of a sleepless nightand a restless day, but little inclined for conversation, Allanleft him resting on the sofa, and lounged into the passage of thehotel, on the chance of discovering somebody to talk to. Hereanother of the trivial incidents of the day brought Allan and Mr.Hawbury together again, and helped--whether happily or not, yetremained to be seen--to strengthen the acquaintance between themon either side.

The "bar" of the hotel was situated at one end of the passage,and the landlady was in attendance there, mixing a glass ofliquor for the doctor, who had just looked in for a littlegossip. On Allan's asking permission to make a third in thedrinking and the gossiping, Mr. Hawbury civilly handed him theglass which the landlady had just filled. It contained coldbrandy-and-water. A marked change in Allan's face, as he suddenlydrew back and asked for whisky instead, caught the doctor'smedical eye. "A case of nervous antipathy," said Mr. Hawbury,quietly taking the glass away again. The remark obliged Allan toacknowledge that he had an insurmountable loathing (which he wasfoolish enough to be a little ashamed of mentioning) to the smelland taste of brandy. No matter with what diluting liquid thespirit was mixed, the presence of it, instantly detected by hisorgans of taste and smell, turned him sick and faint if the drinktouched his lips. Starting from this personal confession, thetalk turned on antipathies in general; and the doctoracknowledged, on his side, that he took a professional interestin the subject, and that he possessed a collection of curiouscases at home, which his new acquaintance was welcome to look at,if Allan had nothing else to do that evening, and if he wouldcall, when the medical work of the day was over, in an hour'stime.

Cordially accepting the invitation (which was extended toMidwinter also, if he cared to profit by it), Allan returned tothe coffee-room to look after his friend. Half asleep and halfawake, Midwinter was still stretched on the sofa, with the localnewspaper just dropping out of his languid hand.

"The doctor," replied Allan. "I am going to smoke a cigar withhim, in an hour's time. Will you come too?"

Midwinter assented with a weary sigh. Always shyly unwilling tomake new acquaintances, fatigue increased the reluctance he nowfelt to become Mr. Hawbury's guest. As matters stood, however,there was no alternative but to go; for, with Allan'sconstitutional imprudence, there was no safely trusting him aloneanywhere, and more especially in a stranger's house. Mr. Brockwould certainly not have left his pupil to visit the doctoralone; and Midwinter was still nervously conscious that heoccupied Mr. Brock's place.

"What shall we do till it's time to go?" asked Allan, lookingabout him. "Anything in this?" he added, observing the fallennewspaper, and picking it up from the floor.

"I'm too tired to look. If you find anything interesting, readit out," said Midwinter, thinking that the reading might help tokeep him awake.

Part of the newspaper, and no small part of it, was devoted toextracts from books recently published in London. One of theworks most largely laid under contribution in this manner was ofthe sort to interest Allan: it was a highly spiced narrative ofTraveling Adventures in the wilds of Australia. Pouncing on anextract which described the sufferings of the traveling-party,lost in a trackless wilderness, and in danger of dying by thirst,Allan announced that he had found something to make his friend'sflesh creep, and began eagerly to read the passage aloud.

Resolute not to sleep, Midwinter followed the progress of theadventure, sentence by sentence, without missing a word. Theconsultation of the lost travelers, with death by thirst staringthem in the face; the resolution to press on while their strengthlasted; the fall of a heavy shower, the vain efforts made tocatch the rainwater, the transient relief experienced by suckingtheir wet clothes; the sufferings renewed a few hours after; thenight advance of the strongest of the party, leaving the weakestbehind; the following a flight of birds when morning dawned; thediscovery by the lost men of the broad pool of water that savedtheir lives--all this Midwinter's fast-failing attention masteredpainfully, Allan's voice growing fainter and fainter on his earwith every sentence that was read. Soon the next words seemed todrop away gently, and nothing but the slowly sinking sound of thevoice was left. Then the light in the room darkened gradually,the sound dwindled into delicious silence, and the last wakingimpressions of the weary Midwinter came peacefully to an end.

The next event of which he was conscious was a sharp ringing atthe closed door of the hotel. He started to his feet, with theready alacrity of a man whose life has accustomed him to wake atthe shortest notice. An instant's look round showed him that theroom was empty, and a glance at his watch told him that it wasclose on midnight. The noise made by the sleepy servant inopening the door, and the tread the next moment of quickfootsteps in the passage, filled him with a sudden foreboding ofsomething wrong. As he hurriedly stepped forward to go out andmake inquiry, the door of the coffee-room opened, and the doctorstood before him.

"At the pier head," answered the doctor. "I am, to a certainextent, responsible for what he is doing now; and I think somecareful person, like yourself, ought to be with him."

The hint was enough for Midwinter. He and the doctor set out forthe pier immediately, Mr. Hawbury mentioning on the way thecircumstances under which he had come to the hotel.

Punctual to the appointed hour Allan had made his appearance atthe doctor's house, explaining that he had left his weary friendso fast asleep on the sofa that he had not had the heart to wakehim. The evening had passed pleasantly, and the conversation hadturned on many subjects, until, in an evil hour, Mr. Hawbury haddropped a hint which showed that he was fond of sailing, and thathe possessed a pleasure-boat of his own in the harbor. Excited onthe instant by his favorite topic, Allan had left his host nohospitable alternative but to take him to the pier head and showhim the boat. The beauty of the night and the softness of thebreeze had done the rest of the mischief; they had filled Allanwith irresistible longings for a sail by moonlight. Preventedfrom accompanying his guest by professional hindrances whichobliged him to remain on shore, the doctor, not knowing what elseto do, had ventured on disturbing Midwinter, rather than take theresponsibility of allowing Mr. Armadale (no matter how well hemight be accustomed to the sea) to set off on a sailing trip atmidnight entirely by himself.

The time taken to make this explanation brought Midwinter and thedoctor to the pier head. There, sure enough, was young Armadalein the boat, hoisting the sail, and singing the sailor's"Yo-heave-ho!" at the top of his voice.

"Come along, old boy!" cried Allan. "You're just in time for afrolic by moonlight!"

Midwinter suggested a frolic by daylight, and an adjournment tobed in the meantime.

"Bed!" cried Allan, on whose harum-scarum high spirits Mr.Hawbury's hospitality had certainly not produced a sedativeeffect. "Hear him, doctor! one would think he was ninety! Bed,you drowsy old dormouse! Look at that, and think of bed if youcan!"

He pointed to the sea. The moon was shining in the cloudlessheaven; the night-breeze blew soft and steady from the land; thepeaceful waters rippled joyfully in the silence and the glory ofthe night. Midwinter turned to the doctor with a wise resignationto circumstances: he had seen enough to satisfy him that allwords of remonstrance would be words simply thrown away.

"How is the tide?" he asked.

Mr. Hawbury told him.

"Are there oars in the boat?"

"Yes."

"I am well used to the sea," said Midwinter, descending the piersteps. "You may trust me to take care of my friend, and to takecare of the boat."

The doctor laughed and waved his hand, and the boat glided outfrom the harbor, with Midwinter at the helm.

As the breeze then blew, they were soon abreast of the westwardheadland, bounding the Bay of Poolvash, and the question wasstarted whether they should run out to sea or keep along theshore. The wisest proceeding, in the event of the wind failingthem, was to keep by the land. Midwinter altered the course ofthe boat, and they sailed on smoothly in a south-westerlydirection, abreast of the coast.

Little by little the cliffs rose in height, and the rocks, massedwild and jagged, showed rifted black chasms yawning deep in theirseaward sides. Off the bold promontory called Spanish Head,Midwinter looked ominously at his watch. But Allan pleaded hardfor half an hour more, and for a glance at the famous channel ofthe Sound, which they were now fast nearing, and of which he hadheard some startling stories from the workmen employed on hisyacht. The new change which Midwinter's compliance with thisrequest rendered it necessary to make in the course of the boatbrought her close to the wind; and revealed, on one side, thegrand view of the southernmost shores of the Isle of Man, and,on the other, the black precipices of the islet called the Calf,separated from the mainland by the dark and dangerous channel ofthe Sound.

Once more Midwinter looked at his watch. "We have gone farenough," he said. "Stand by the sheet!"

"Stop!" cried Allan, from the bows of the boat. "Good God! here'sa wrecked ship right ahead of us!"

Midwinter let the boat fall off a little, and looked where theother pointed.

There, stranded midway between the rocky boundaries on eitherside of the Sound--there, never again to rise on the livingwaters from her grave on the sunken rock; lost and lonely in thequiet night; high, and dark, and ghostly in the yellow moonshine,lay the Wrecked Ship.

"I know the vessel," said Allan, in great excitement. "I heardmy workmen talking of her yesterday. She drifted in here, on apitch-dark night, when they couldn't see the lights; a poor oldworn-out merchantman, Midwinter, that the ship-brokers havebought to break up. Let's run in and have a look at her."

Midwinter hesitated. All the old sympathies of his sea-lifestrongly inclined him to follow Allan's suggestion; but the windwas falling light, and he distrusted the broken water and theswirling currents of the channel ahead. "This is an ugly placeto take a boat into when you know nothing about it," he said.

"Nonsense!" returned Allan. "It's as light as day, and we floatin two feet of water."

Before Midwinter could answer, the current caught the boat, andswept them onward through the channel straight toward the wreck.

"Lower the sail," said Midwinter, quietly, "and ship the oars. Weare running down on her fast enough now, whether we like it ornot."

Both well accustomed to the use of the oar, they brought thecourse of the boat under sufficient control to keep her on thesmoothest side of the channel--the side which was nearest to theIslet of the Calf. As they came swiftly up with the wreck,Midwinter resigned his oar to Allan; and, watching hisopportunity, caught a hold with the boat-hook on the fore-chainsof the vessel. The next moment they had the boat safely in hand,under the lee of the wreck.

The ship's ladder used by the workmen hung over the fore-chains.Mounting it, with the boat's rope in his teeth, Midwinter securedone end, and lowered the other to Allan in the boat. "Make thatfast," he said, "and wait till I see if it's all safe on board."With those words, he disappeared behind the bulwark.

"Wait?" repeated Allan, in the blankest astonishment at hisfriend's excessive caution. "What on earth does he mean? I'll behanged if I wait. Where one of us goes, the other goes too!"

He hitched the loose end of the rope round the forward thwart ofthe boat, and, swinging himself up the ladder, stood the nextmoment on the deck. "Anything very dreadful on board?" heinquired sarcastically, as he and his friend met.

Midwinter smiled. "Nothing whatever," he replied. "But I couldn'tbe sure that we were to have the whole ship to ourselves till Igot over the bulwark and looked about me."

Allan took a turn on the deck, and surveyed the wreck criticallyfrom stem to stern.

"Not much of a vessel," he said; "the Frenchmen generally buildbetter ships than this."

Midwinter crossed the deck, and eyed Allan in a momentarysilence.

"Frenchmen?" he repeated, after an interval. "Is this vesselFrench?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"The men I have got at work on the yacht told me. They know allabout her."

Midwinter came a little nearer. His swarthy face began to look,to Allan's eyes, unaccountably pale in the moonlight.

"Did they mention what trade she was engaged in?"

"Yes; the timber trade."

As Allan gave that answer, Midwinter's lean brown hand clutchedhim fast by the shoulder, and Midwinter's teeth chattered in hishead like the teeth of a man struck by a sudden chill.

"Did they tell you her name?" he asked, in a voice that droppedsuddenly to a whisper.

"They did, I think. But it has slipped my memory.--Gently, oldfellow; these long claws of yours are rather tight on myshoulder."

"Was the name--?" He stopped, removed his hand, and dashed awaythe great drops that were gathering on his forehead. "Was thename _La Grace de Dieu_?"

"How the deuce did you come to know it? That's the name, sureenough. _La Grace de Dieu_."

At one bound, Midwinter leaped on the bulwark of the wreck.

"The boat!" he cried, with a scream of horror that rang far andwide through the stillness of the night, and brought Allaninstantly to his side.

The lower end of the carelessly hitched rope was loose on thewater, and ahead, in the track of the moonlight, a small blackobject was floating out of view. The boat was adrift.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SHADOW OF THE PAST.

One stepping back under the dark shelter of the bulwark, andone standing out boldly in the yellow light of the moon, thetwo friends turned face to face on the deck of the timber-ship,and looked at each other in silence. The next moment Allan'sinveterate recklessness seized on the grotesque side of thesituation by main force. He seated himself astride on thebulwark, and burst out boisterously into his loudest andheartiest laugh.

"All my fault," he said; "but there's no help for it now. Here weare, hard and fast in a trap of our own setting; and there goesthe last of the doctor's boat! Come out of the dark, Midwinter;I can't half see you there, and I want to know what's to be donenext."

Midwinter neither answered nor moved. Allan left the bulwark,and, mounting the forecastle, looked down attentively at thewaters of the Sound.

"One thing is pretty certain," he said. "With the current on thatside, and the sunken rocks on this, we can't find our way out ofthe scrape by swimming, at any rate. So much for the prospect atthis end of the wreck. Let's try how things look at the other.Rouse up, messmate!" he called out, cheerfully, as he passedMidwinter. "Come and see what the old tub of a timber-ship hasgot to show us astern." He sauntered on, with his hands in hispockets, humming the chorus of a comic song.

His voice had produced no apparent effect on his friend; but, atthe light touch of his hand in passing, Midwinter started, andmoved out slowly from the shadow of the bulwark. "Come along!"cried Allan, suspending his singing for a moment, and glancingback. Still, without a word of answer, the other followed. Thricehe stopped before he reached the stern end of the wreck: thefirst time, to throw aside his hat, and push back his hair fromhis forehead and temples; the second time, reeling, giddy, tohold for a moment by a ring-bolt close at hand; the last time(though Allan was plainly visible a few yards ahead), to lookstealthily behind him, with the furtive scrutiny of a man whobelieves that other footsteps are following him in the dark."Not yet!" he whispered to himself, with eyes that searched theempty air. "I shall see him astern, with his hand on the lock ofthe cabin door."

The stern end of the wreck was clear of the ship-breakers'lumber, accumulated in the other parts of the vessel. Here, theone object that rose visible on the smooth surface of the deckwas the low wooden structure which held the cabin door and roofedin the cabin stairs. The wheel-house had been removed, thebinnacle had been removed, but the cabin entrance, and all thathad belonged to it, had been left untouched. The scuttle was on,and the door was closed.

On gaining the after-part of the vessel, Allan walked straight tothe stern, and looked out to sea over the taffrail. No such thingas a boat was in view anywhere on the quiet, moon-brightenedwaters. Knowing Midwinter's sight to be better than his own, hecalled out, "Come up here, and see if there's a fisherman withinhail of us." Hearing no reply, he looked back. Midwinter hadfollowed him as far as the cabin, and had stopped there. Hecalled again in a louder voice, and beckoned impatiently.Midwinter had heard the call, for he looked up, but still henever stirred from his place. There he stood, as if he hadreached the utmost limits of the ship and could go no further.

Allan went back and joined him. It was not easy to discover whathe was looking at, for he kept his face turned away from themoonlight; but it seemed as if his eyes were fixed, with astrange expression of inquiry, on the cabin door. "What is thereto look at there?" Allan asked. "Let's see if it's locked." As hetook a step forward to open the door, Midwinter's hand seized himsuddenly by the coat collar and forced him back. The momentafter, the hand relaxed without losing its grasp, and trembledviolently, like the hand of a man completely unnerved.

"Am I to consider myself in custody?" asked Allan, halfastonished and half amused. "Why in the name of wonder do youkeep staring at the cabin door? Any suspicious noises below? It'sno use disturbing the rats--if that's what you mean--we haven'tgot a dog with us. Men? Living men they can't be; for they wouldhave heard us and come on deck. Dead men? Quite impossible! Noship's crew could be drowned in a land-locked place like this,unless the vessel broke up under them--and here's the vessel assteady as a church to speak for herself. Man alive, how your handtrembles! What is there to scare you in that rotten old cabin?What are you shaking and shivering about? Any company of thesupernatural sort on board? Mercy preserve us! (as the old womensay) do you see a ghost?"

"_I see two_!" answered the other, driven headlong into speechand action by a maddening temptation to reveal the truth. "Two!"he repeated, his breath bursting from him in deep, heavy gasps,as he tried vainly to force back the horrible words. "The ghostof a man like you, drowning in the cabin! And the ghost of a manlike me, turning the lock of the door on him!"

Once more young Armadale's hearty laughter rang out loud and longthrough the stillness of the night.

"Turning the lock of the door, is he?" said Allan, as soon as hismerriment left him breath enough to speak. "That's a devilishunhandsome action, Master Midwinter, on the part of your ghost.The least I can do, after that, is to let mine out of the cabin,and give him the run of the ship."

With no more than a momentary exertion of his superior strength,he freed himself easily from Midwinter's hold. "Below there!" hecalled out, gayly, as he laid his strong hand on the crazy lock,and tore open the cabin door. "Ghost of Allan Armadale, come ondeck!" In his terrible ignorance of the truth, he put his headinto the doorway and looked down, laughing, at the place wherehis murdered father had died. "Pah!" he exclaimed, stepping backsuddenly, with a shudder of disgust. "The air is foul already;and the cabin is full of water."

It was true. The sunken rocks on which the vessel lay wrecked hadburst their way through her lower timbers astern, and the waterhad welled up through the rifted wood. Here, where the deed hadbeen done, the fatal parallel between past and present wascomplete. What the cabin had been in the time of the fathers,that the cabin was now in the time of the sons.

Allan pushed the door to again with his foot, a little surprisedat the sudden silence which appeared to have fallen on his friendfrom the moment when he had laid his hand on the cabin lock. Whenhe turned to look, the reason of the silence was instantlyrevealed. Midwinter had dropped on the deck. He lay senselessbefore the cabin door; his face turned up, white and still, tothe moonlight, like the face of a dead man.

In a moment Allan was at his side. He looked uselessly round thelonely limits of the wreck, as he lifted Midwinter's head on hisknee, for a chance of help, where all chance was ruthlessly cutoff. "What am I to do?" he said to himself, in the first impulseof alarm. "Not a drop of water near, but the foul water in thecabin." A sudden recollection crossed his memory, the floridcolor rushed back over his face, and he drew from his pocket awicker-covered flask. "God bless the doctor for giving me thisbefore we sailed!" he broke out, fervently, as he poured downMidwinter's throat some drops of the raw whisky which the flaskcontained. The stimulant acted instantly on the sensitive systemof the swooning man. He sighed faintly, and slowly opened hiseyes. "Have I been dreaming?" he asked, looking up vacantly inAllan's face. His eyes wandered higher, and encountered thedismantled masts of the wreck rising weird and black against thenight sky. He shuddered at the sight of them, and hid his face onAllan's knee. "No dream!" he murmured to himself, mournfully. "Ohme, no dream!"

"You have been overtired all day," said Allan, "and this infernaladventure of ours has upset you. Take some more whisky, it's sureto do you good. Can you sit by yourself, if I put you against thebulwark, so?"

"Why by myself? Why do you leave me?" asked Midwinter.

Allan pointed to the mizzen shrouds of the wreck, which werestill left standing. "You are not well enough to rough it heretill the workmen come off in the morning," he said. "We must findour way on shore at once, if we can. I am going up to get a goodview all round, and see if there's a house within hail of us."

Even in the moment that passed while those few words were spoken,Midwinter's eyes wandered back distrustfully to the fatal cabindoor. "Don't go near it!" he whispered. "Don't try to open it,for God's sake!"

"No, no," returned Allan, humoring him. "When I come down fromthe rigging, I'll come back here." He said the words a littleconstrainedly, noticing, for the first time while he now spoke,an underlying distress in Midwinter's face, which grieved andperplexed him. "You're not angry with me?" he said, in hissimple, sweet-tempered way. "All this is my fault, I know; and Iwas a brute and a fool to laugh at you, when I ought to have seenyou were ill. I am so sorry, Midwinter. Don't be angry with me!"

Midwinter slowly raised his head. His eyes rested with a mournfulinterest, long and tender, on Allan's anxious face.

"Angry?" he repeated, in his lowest, gentlest tones. "Angry with_ you_?--Oh, my poor boy, were you to blame for being kind to mewhen I was ill in the old west-country inn? And was I to blamefor feeling your kindness thankfully? Was it our fault that wenever doubted each other, and never knew that we were travelingtogether blindfold on the way that was to lead us here? The crueltime is coming, Allan, when we shall rue the day we ever met.Shake hands, brother, on the edge of the precipice--shake handswhile we are brothers still!"

Allan turned away quickly, convinced that his mind had not yetrecovered the shock of the fainting fit. "Don't forget thewhisky!" he said, cheerfully, as he sprang into the rigging, andmounted to the mizzen-top.

It was past two, the moon was waning, and the darkness that comesbefore dawn was beginning to gather round the wreck. BehindAllan, as he now stood looking out from the elevation of themizzen-top, spread the broad and lonely sea. Before him were thelow, black, lurking rocks, and the broken waters of the channel,pouring white and angry into the vast calm of the westward oceanbeyond. On the right hand, heaved back grandly from thewater-side, were the rocks and precipices, with their littletable-lands of grass between; the sloping downs, andupward-rolling heath solitudes of the Isle of Man. On the lefthand rose the craggy sides of the Islet of the Calf, here rentwildly into deep black chasms, there lying low under longsweeping acclivities of grass and heath. No sound rose, no lightwas visible, on either shore. The black lines of the topmostmasts of the wreck looked shadowy and faint in the darkeningmystery of the sky; the land breeze had dropped; the smallshoreward waves fell noiseless: far or near, no sound was audiblebut the cheerless bubbling of the broken water ahead, pouringthrough the awful hush of silence in which earth and ocean waitedfor the coming day.

Even Allan's careless nature felt the solemn influence of thetime. The sound of his own voice startled him when he looked downand hailed his friend on deck

"I think I see one house," he said. "Here-away, on the mainlandto the right." He looked again, to make sure, at a dim littlepatch of white, with faint white lines behind it, nestling lowin a grassy hollow, on the main island. "It looks like a stonehouse and inclosure," he resumed. "I'll hail it, on the chance."He passed his arm round a rope to steady himself, made aspeaking-trumpet of his hands, and suddenly dropped them againwithout uttering a sound. "It's so awfully quiet," he whisperedto himself. "I'm half afraid to call out." He looked down againon deck. "I shan't startle you, Midwinter, shall I?" he said,with an uneasy laugh. He looked once more at the faint whiteobject, in the grassy hollow. "It won't do to have come up herefor nothing," he thought, and made a speaking-trumpet of hishands again. This time he gave the hail with the whole power ofhis lungs. "On shore there!" he shouted, turning his face to themain island. "Ahoy-hoy-hoy!"

The last echoes of his voice died away and were lost. No soundanswered him but the cheerless bubbling of the broken waterahead.

He looked down again at his friend, and saw the dark figure ofMidwinter rise erect, and pace the deck backward and forward,never disappearing out of sight of the cabin when it retiredtoward the bows of the wreck, and never passing beyond the cabinwhen it returned toward the stern. "He is impatient to get away,"thought Allan; "I'll try again." He hailed the land once more,and, taught by previous experience, pitched his voice in itshighest key.

This time another sound than the sound of the bubbling wateranswered him. The lowing of frightened cattle rose from thebuilding in the grassy hollow, and traveled far and drearilythrough the stillness of the morning air. Allan waited andlistened. If the building was a farmhouse the disturbance amongthe beasts would rouse the men. If it was only a cattle-stable,nothing more would happen. The lowing of the frightened brutesrose and fell drearily, the minutes passed, and nothing happened.

"Once more!" said Allan, looking down at the restless figurepacing beneath him. For the third time he hailed the land. Forthe third time he waited and listened.

In a pause of silence among the cattle, he heard behind him,on the opposite shore of the channel, faint and far among thesolitudes of the Islet of the Calf, a sharp, sudden sound, likethe distant clash of a heavy door-bolt drawn back. Turning atonce in the new direction, he strained his eyes to look for ahouse. The last faint rays of the waning moonlight trembled hereand there on the higher rocks, and on the steeper pinnacles ofground, but great strips of darkness lay dense and black overall the land between; and in that darkness the house, if housethere were, was lost to view.

"I have roused somebody at last," Allan called out,encouragingly, to Midwinter, still walking to and fro on thedeck, strangely indifferent to all that was passing above andbeyond him. "Look out for the answering, hail!" And with his faceset toward the islet, Allan shouted for help.

The shout was not answered, but mimicked with a shrill, shriekingderision, with wilder and wilder cries, rising out of the deepdistant darkness, and mingling horribly the expression of a humanvoice with the sound of a brute's. A sudden suspicion crossedAllan's mind, which made his head swim and turned his hand coldas it held the rigging. In breathless silence he looked towardthe quarter from which the first mimicry of his cry for help hadcome. After a moment's pause the shrieks were renewed, and thesound of them came nearer. Suddenly a figure, which seemed thefigure of a man, leaped up black on a pinnacle of rock, andcapered and shrieked in the waning gleam of the moonlight. Thescreams of a terrified woman mingled with the cries of thecapering creature on the rock. A red spark flashed out in thedarkness from a light kindled in an invisible window. The hoarseshouting of a man's voice in anger was heard through the noise.A second black figure leaped up on the rock, struggled with thefirst figure, and disappeared with it in the darkness. The criesgrew fainter and fainter, the screams of the woman were stilled,the hoarse voice of the man was heard again for a moment, hailingthe wreck in words made unintelligible by the distance, but intones plainly expressive of rage and fear combined. Anothermoment, and the clang of the door-bolt was heard again, the redspark of light was quenched in darkness, and all the islet layquiet in the shadows once more. The lowing of the cattle on themain-land ceased, rose again, stopped. Then, cold and cheerlessas ever, the eternal bubbling of the broken water welled upthrough the great gap of silence--the one sound left, as themysterious stillness of the hour fell like a mantle from theheavens, and closed over the wreck.

Allan descended from his place in the mizzen-top, and joined hisfriend again on deck.

"We must wait till the ship-breakers come off to their work," hesaid, meeting Midwinter halfway in the course of his restlesswalk. "After what has happened, I don't mind confessing thatI've had enough of hailing the land. Only think of there beinga madman in that house ashore, and of my waking him! Horrible,wasn't it?"

Midwinter stood still for a moment, and looked at Allan, withthe perplexed air of a man who hears circumstances familiarlymentioned to which he is himself a total stranger. He appeared,if such a thing had been possible, to have passed over entirelywithout notice all that had just happened on the Islet of theCalf.

"Nothing is horrible _out_ of this ship," he said. "Everythingis horrible _in_ it."

Answering in those strange words, he turned away again, and wenton with his walk.

Allan picked up the flask of whisky lying on the deck near him,and revived his spirits with a dram. "Here's one thing on boardthat isn't horrible," he retorted briskly, as he screwed on thestopper of the flask; "and here's another," he added, as he tooka cigar from his case and lit it. "Three o'clock!" he went on,looking at his watch, and settling himself comfortably on deckwith his back against the bulwark. "Daybreak isn't far off; weshall have the piping of the birds to cheer us up before long.I say, Midwinter, you seem to have quite got over that unluckyfainting fit. How you do keep walking! Come here and have acigar, and make yourself comfortable. What's the good of trampingbackward and forward in that restless way?"

"I am waiting," said Midwinter.

"Waiting! What for?"

"For what is to happen to you or to me--or to both of us--beforewe are out of this ship."

"With submission to your superior judgment, my dear fellow, Ithink quite enough has happened already. The adventure will dovery well as it stands now; more of it is more than I want." Hetook another dram of whisky, and rambled on, between the puffsof his cigar, in his usual easy way. "I've not got your fineimagination, old boy; and I hope the next thing that happens willbe the appearance of the workmen's boat. I suspect that queerfancy of yours has been running away with you while you were downhere all by yourself. Come, now, what were you thinking of whileI was up in the mizzen-top frightening the cows?"